“No amount of belief makes something a fact.”
This is one of those quotes I think falls easily into my atheism, my libertarian, and my gun rights beliefs.
Category: Libertarianism
Women in Combat
Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Panetta announced that some combat positions would be opened up for women. One of my co-workers asked me what I thought about this. Should we let women in combat?
I have radically changed my opinions on several issues after watching over a decade of war. One is that nation building is utter bullshit. It’s a lesson we should’ve learned with Vietnam, but we keep making it over and over. Another is that the traditional battlefield no longer exists. The battlefield is wherever the military is operating in theater.
So what do I think of women in combat? FSM, they’ve been in combat for a decade. One of my former roommate’s ex-girlfriends was a former Marine injured in Iraq by a mortar attack. Supply convoys have been ambushed and female officers and NCOs have been leading their troops in some nasty battles. They’ve already proven they can fight. So why not allow them into combat teams now? That way we can get the regs and training meted out before advances in power armor truly level the playing field between men and women.
My caveat to this is that I would expect a female infantry soldier to meet the same basic requirements as a male infantry soldier. To do otherwise would ruin unit cohesion at best, and put combat teams at risk at worst. I would also expect that women should either be forced to sign up for selective service, or more appropriately abolish this relic of a bygone time.
Friday Quote – Penn Jillette
Everytime something really bad happens, people cry out for safety, and the government answers by taking rights away from good people.
Penn Jillette
There was the temptation to use Franklin’s quote concerning liberty and temporary security, but that’s been overused to the point that it’s become background noise or such a canned phrase that you’d need a Turing test to determine if the user is human and not a spambot.
If there’s one thing I’ve become more and more annoyed with, it’s the idea that we can make the world safe for humanity. To put it bluntly, that is utter bullshit. There’s a risk for living on this planet. It comes from the flora, the fauna, other humans, the planet itself, and from the cosmos that the Earth lives within.
From my observations, humans thrive the best when they have the liberty to do as they see fit and a strong rule of law to ensure that they suffer the consequences for their actions. For their actions. Not for the actions of others. Collective guilt is one of the tools to divert power from the individual to the authority. To strip liberty under the auspices of the “greater good.” To make humans less than what they could be.
Currently, this quote rings true surrounding the current debate about guns. Yet, what about the other intrusions. Frank-Dodd, Obamacare, the PATRIOT act, Sarbanes-Oxley…the list goes on and on. With the crisis immediate, the people are willing to sacrifice their freedoms for the promise that the government will prevent such things from happening again.
But do we get our freedoms back when those promises are broken? Please?
What Price Gouging?
I keep seeing charges price gouging by the some of the major Internet retailers. I also see pictures of stores stripped of evil black rifles and their associated paraphernalia. These two claims are contradictory. If we are asserting there is an unusually high demand that has resulted in a low supply of AR’s and parts, we shouldn’t be surprised that the prices would have go up, sometimes dramatically. We understand this when we see prices go up for gas in an emergency (Hurricane Sandy being the most recent), but seem oblivious to it when it affects our hobby.
Sure we can complain “oh it’s just a simple piece of aluminum/plastic with a spring,” but there’s a scare supply. Brownells went through what would normally be a three year supply in three days. So, if some retailers have adjusted their prices to match the hyper-demand with low supply, that is not price gouging, that is how prices are determined. What will the market bear? If we as consumers believe these suppliers are charging too high a price, then we choose not to buy at high-priced dealers. When the supply increases or the demand (panic) decreases, those retailers will be forced to decrease their prices or not be able to move their inventory.
This is economics, not a conspiracy.
Whose money is it anyway?
The UK Parliament and Exchequer has their panties in a bunch that some corporations are not sending them as much money as the Queen’s government thinks these corporations should. And worse of all, it’s all legal. How much cash are we talking about? So much cash that high-level representatives from these corporations are being dragged in for a public flogging questioning. After all, it’s immoral for corporations to utilize legal means to keep their tax bills as low as possible.
The outrage from the British government is ludicrous. First and foremost, no corporation, like any individual, has a moral imperative to pay one pound more in tax than is legally required. Second, the corporations will bring more value to subjects of the British government by keeping it rather than following the dictates of the British Governments extortionists.
The outrage is also a bit hypocritical considering the Brits’ solicitation for the French wealthy to relocate in order to escape the new French taxes.
The last point is that the politicians seem to forget most often. Corporations do not pay taxes. The firms may write the checks, but the funds to pay the tax bill came from the firms’ customers and investors. Higher taxes on the corporations means either higher prices to the consumers and/or lower dividends to the investors to put money into the hands of the British government. The same government that says higher taxes and more government spending is austerity.
Can we please leave the money in the hands of individuals and firms that actually understand economics?
Friday Quote – Thomas Sowell
“Four things have almost invariably followed the imposition of controls to keep prices below the level they would reach under supply and demand in a free market: (1) increased use of the product or service whose price is controlled, (2) Reduced supply of the same product or service, (3) quality deterioration, (4) black markets.”
Many of my readers may think I’m putting this quote up because of Obamacare and socialized medicine in general. While applicable, the two real reasons is because I’ve been listening to Dr. Sowell’s Basic Economics and because I was taking with one of my co-workers about price gouging during an emergency.
Some of the people I talk to are surprised when I tell them that there is no such thing as price gouging and oppose laws that try to dictate prices, even during an “emergency.” If anything, those prices keep “scarce resources” (as Dr. Sowell refers to them in his works) available for those who truly value them. Most people wouldn’t pay $20 for a can of milk, but a mother of an infant in the middle of a disaster will. By charging that high price, the scarce resource is held for the person who highly values it. Also, the high profits from such trade invites competition into the market, which will bring down the price.
“That’s nice, but what about those who can’t afford those demand-driven prices and are in desperate need?” This is where I veer sharply away from the objectivists. I do believe in charity. I do believe this is where focused non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can have their biggest impact by making sure that resources that are scarce within the emergency area are brought in from areas with surpluses and directed to those who can’t obtain them.
I’m also a believer in protecting scavengers during an emergency situation. People trying to find supplies in abandoned stores should not be prosecuted. By supplies, I mean items essential to survival. Coming out of a Best Buy with four flat screen TVs is not scavenging. That’s looting. You shoot looters, you help scavengers. At some point, I’m willing to compromise on property rights to save lives. I’m human, I’m allowed some mental contradictions.
Friday Quote – Captain America & J. Michael Straczynski
Doesn’t matter what the press says. Doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world — *”No, you move.”*
Captain America, in Amazing Spider-Man 537, written by J. Michael Straczynski
I first read this quote and felt inspired. When writing about topics that are not popular with large segments of the population, sometimes it feels like I’m standing alone against a wave of ignorance. Of course, every other person fighting for their beliefs are doing the same thing. To them, they are also fighting against those dark forces of ignorance and malevolence. So, it’s up to me to make damn sure that my armor of ideals have been tempered in the cauldron of research and introspection.
Friday Quote – H.L. Mencken
Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods.
Continuing the libertarian trend for Friday quotes with the reminder that government can’t create wealth for the society. Government can only affect wealth in two ways: creating the regulatory/judicial environment. and forcibly transferring wealth from one segment of the population to another. The best that a modern government can do is foster a legal/regulatory environment that is good for business opportunities and not steal too much wealth to hand out to its supporters.
Giving Words to My Rage
One of Barron’s commenters hits it out of the park.
This rant encapsulates so much of what I’ve been saying this election cycle. Very well said Wolfman!
And why aren’t you reading Barron’s blog?
Pre-Friday Friday Quote – Alexis de Tocqueville
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
Alexis de Tocqueville, 19th century political commentator and philosopher
This quote has been bouncing around the gun blogs and podcasts in regards to the presidential election. To a degree, there is truth that the looters have come out to protect those that loot in their name.
The truth is that the presidential election was lost by the Republican leadership. As far as I can tell, the Republican leadership has two major defects. 1) They are more concerned with maintaining their own positions of power than winning elections. 2) They are far more interested in looking good in the Beltway than doing good for the rest of the nation. If the Republicans want to become more than a permanent opposition party, they are going to have to rid themselves of the parasites and focus on what the voters were telling them. Focus on fiscal conservatism and leave the social crap alone.
I don’t expect the Republican leadership to pull their heads out of their asses, and I don’t expect the Tea Party wing of the party to full-up revolt and seize the leadership. This is part of the reason I refuse to return or give money/support to the Republican Party. I might be willing to support individual Republicans, but the party needs major reform before they will have my backing.